A Glimpse Into A Fan's Vision For A Batman: Arkham Asylum Remake

I saw a project that reimagines the visuals and mechanics of Batman: Arkham Asylum in Unreal Engine 4. A YouTube user known as ‘RRe36’ released a video with gameplay footage from this effort, which offers an idea of what a modern Batman: Arkham Asylum Remaster could be.

The creator, who calls the project Arkham Unreal, began several years ago by pulling assets from the official Batman: Arkham games and placing them into the new engine. This initial experiment grew into an effort to replicate the game’s core mechanics. As the creator's familiarity with Unreal Engine deepened, the systems he built became more sophisticated. This work led to the development of nearly complete movement features, including the iconic grappling and cape-gliding abilities. Later, he integrated enemies and combat mechanics, which are demonstrated in the latest video showcase.

In the footage, I watched Batman engage with enemies in the Sewer and Archives locations. The combat appears to have the same weight and rhythm as the original game. Visually, the fan project shows clear enhancements over the original title. The textures have a higher resolution, the character models appear more detailed, and the cape features new, more fluid animations. For a project developed by a single person, the work successfully captures the distinct atmosphere and style of the original Batman: Arkham Asylum.

The project is not available to the public, and there are no plans for a future release. Its use of assets from the original games makes copyright issues a near certainty. The project's large file size presents another complication, amounting to approximately 130GB. This total includes around 80GB of project files and another 50GB for a custom build of the engine.

The developer does not intend to recreate the entire game; instead, choosing to focus on elements he finds interesting. While it serves as a proof of concept for a potential remaster, it is not a fully-fledged game. The decision to use Unreal Engine 4 instead of Unreal Engine 5 was a practical one. The developer noted that Unreal Engine 5 doesn’t provide any features that would be worth the significant work of upgrading. The project does not contain large-scale dynamic environments that would benefit from the Lumen lighting system, nor does it use ultra-high-detail models that would take advantage of the Nanite geometry system.

Check our article: " Top 5 Unreal Engine 5 Remakes We Need ", to discover more about other ambitious fan remakes of classic games and the growing impact of powerful tools like Unreal Engine 5 on the gaming community.